


Nothing To Be Done

by Endlessnotebooks



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Gen, Irondad, Pain, and lots of them, homecoming gave peter joint problems, joint cracking, joint issues, kind of, peter cracks his joints c o n s t a n t l y, spiderson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 22:26:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15592119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Endlessnotebooks/pseuds/Endlessnotebooks
Summary: Peter didn’t talk about a lot of what happened as Spider-Man, and especially not about what happened at Homecoming. Most of all, though, he didn’t talk about the long-term effects of that night. He didn’t talk about pain.





	Nothing To Be Done

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the amalgamation of a couple of conversations I had with spiderboyneedsahug (check her out! She's awesome!!) on Tumblr, so huge thanks to her! 
> 
> Most of Peter's experience with these issues is based on my own experience with joint injuries (sprained ankles, both, multiple times; knee, I don't know what it is, but I whacked it against ice while skating a couple times and it's never been the same; a couple others from Krav Maga).

May and Ben had always warned Peter that injuries to joints – ankles, knees, wrists, etc. – were the worst, and that they would leave those joints weaker for the rest of his life. He had never put much thought into it before, since he wasn’t exactly athletic and in a position where he had to worry about it, but Peter’s joints had become a bit more prone to popping and cracking as he had started up with the Spider-Man business. It came with the territory, as far as he was concerned, and it didn’t bother him too much. Eventually, when he started feeling stiff, he would even encourage them to pop. His knuckles, his wrists. Anything that was slightly prone to cracking at any given moment was worth the effort to make pop, especially if he was becoming uncomfortable.

Ned found it weird, how often Peter was suddenly popping his joints. Tony, despite his protests, clearly was bothered by it.

“Kid, it’s your body. If you want to pop all the nitrogen out of your joints, who am I to stop you?”

It wasn’t until he popped his neck that Tony said anything to discourage him. He had reached around his head, jerking it a bit to the side when his neck wouldn’t quite pop, and Tony had gone through a full-body shudder watching him.

“That was absolutely disgusting. How did you not snap your neck?”

Peter shrugged. “I mean, I never have before…”

“Oh, god. You’re going to give me a heart attack.” Tony shook his head from his chair. “You know I have heart problems, right?”

“Mister Stark, I’ve been cracking my joints for a while now. It feels good!”

“It can’t be healthy. At all.”

“I don’t know…”

“I do know. There’s a reason it hurts the first time you do it! Because you aren’t supposed to! Now go grab me that screwdriver.”

Tony pretended it didn’t bother him that when the kid stood up he heard several of his joints pop. His hips, his knee, he was pretty sure even parts of his lower spine cracked as he moved. Something was up, or the kid was just harder on his body than Tony originally thought.

“This one?” Peter held up a small-tipped Philip’s head.

“Yeah. Now come on back over here.”

*

Peter’s joints got worse after the Vulture. They hadn’t hurt before, just gotten stiff like an overworked muscle would. Now, they _hurt_. There would be days he couldn’t wear certain jeans, because the pull of the fabric on his knee was just enough to make walking and functioning nearly unbearable. His ankles were shot, but the one that had gotten jammed in the engine had taken long enough to heal as is (not that he had actually stayed off of it or told anyone how badly it had been hurt…) and often started in on him with throbbing pain, usually at the most inopportune times.

Such as in gym class, as he was doing the running portion of the fitness test. He had nearly collapsed, much to Flash’s amusement, because his ankle was hurting so badly. He had advanced healing – why wasn’t this done and gone?

But he couldn’t let on what was really going on, so instead he brushed it off like he had nearly tripped. He didn’t tell May, even though she knew now, because he couldn’t worry her. Besides, if she knew what was wrong, not to mention how it happened, then she might make him stop being Spider-Man. That wasn’t something he wanted to do _at all_.

So he muscled through it like he did anytime he was in pain. He smiled through it, he brushed off Ned’s concern, saying it was just from a rough patrol. He’d keep smiling through the pain so long as it didn’t affect his work as Spider-Man.

*

Patrolling went fairly well, even with the pain. The way the suit wrapped around him provided cushioning for his joints, helping to soften blows and immobilize the joints enough that, while he could move, he wouldn’t exacerbate them. He always felt it after patrol, but while he was doing it he had a few hours where the pain wasn’t so bad.

The pain came and went, so Peter relished the days he wasn’t in pain. The days he could run full force or swing from webs without worrying about jerking his shoulder around too much. Days like today, where he was able to lay out and put weight on his joints without feeling the consequences of it when he shifted positions were heaven. May seemed to notice his better mood, as she pulled him into a hug when he got home, planted a kiss on his forehead, and passed him some water.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

“Me too.” Peter sipped at the water.

“I know you don’t like telling me about your injuries, but I can tell. It’s a mother’s job.”

They didn’t talk much about how she was basically his mother. He had gone through a phase when he was eleven where he tried to shift to calling May and Ben ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’, but it had felt a bit weird. It felt like he was pushing them into something none of the three of them were ready for.

May stood up to make some tea. “You can always come to me, Peter. I know this is important to you, this Spider-Man stuff. I won’t stop you, but I would like to know when you’re hurting. Maybe I can help.”

Peter shrugged. “My metabolism means ibuprofen and Advil don’t work for me.”

May’s face scrunched in confusion. “I guess that makes sense. Hm… Still, you can come to me if you ever need to.”

Peter was quiet a moment. “Thanks, May.”

*

It was a bad day. Peter had woken up, standing from his bed, feeling how weak his knee and ankle were. The ankle throbbed a bit, but if he was careful he would be able to make it through the day just fine. He could skip patrolling today, go straight home, and rest it while he worked on his homework. He just had to get through the day, and he would be _fine_. He had to be. He couldn’t afford not to be, because he had training with Tony the next day, and he refused to miss it.

By the time he was walking into class, it felt like it took everything in Peter to keep his leg from just going out from under him. It hurt, oh god, did it hurt. He was so grateful to sit down and not put any pressure on his leg. To not move it at all for a few hours would be too perfect. Unfortunately, classes changed every hour. While it wasn’t too bad – he was only on it a few minutes at a time between classes – he was still feeling the edges of it at the end of the day. Still feeling the pain and annoyance that came with it.

Maybe that’s why, when he saw Happy parked outside waiting for him (despite it not being an ‘internship’ day), he sighed. He didn’t want to do anything to make things worse. Bearing his weight as subtly as he could on the other side meant now _both_ legs were in pain, and his back was feeling the pain of having had to do more support work all day. His body was shot.

“Hey, Happy.”

“Kid.” Happy nodded at him. “Boss has a minor mission. Some kind of lizard thing that’s near the compound. You’re assisting.”

“Cool.”

He got in the car, grateful for the long drive to the compound. He could try to sleep off some of the pain, or at least be more successful in ignoring it.

*

The battle aspect wasn’t too hard, and if Tony or Colonel Rhodes noticed that he was supporting his weight awkwardly or that he was landing on his non-dominant side more often, they didn’t say anything. Actually, given the circumstances, they probably hadn’t even noticed.

His shoulders ached from being yanked around by his webs, his back ached from being thrown into the ground.

Peter ignored the pain, ignored the pleading questions from Karen to stop swinging from his webs to prevent more damage to his body, and moved forward. The only reason she hadn’t told Tony yet was that he had told her it was an old problem, had told her he wouldn’t be able to do anything Peter hadn’t already tried. She didn’t like it, as she reminded him every time he hurt a joint more, but she kept it quiet.

Peter hadn’t accounted for the fact that today, of all days, was a day he should have declined a mission, though, meaning more danger for him.

Tony was fighting from the ground, one of his flight repulsors damaged by the lizards having kept him grounded. “Kid, I need some back-up.”

“On my way, Mister Stark!”

“Quit calling me that, damn it!”

Peter was about to retort, but when he landed he could feel something was wrong before anything happened. He used his minimal time to throw a taser web into the face of the lizard as his knee locked. The weight on his ankle made his entire leg go out from under him, landing him in a roll along his shoulder.

“Ow…”

“Kid, what just happened?”

Peter opted not to answer, twisting up to shoot another web at the lizard, giving Tony time to throw another shot at it, taking it down. It was the last one, too, meaning he had a chance to breathe before forcing himself to his feet.

“Kid, what was that? Is something wrong? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’m fine.” He winced as his ankle throbbed. His knee pain was easier to ignore when the fall had jacked up his ankle even worse.

_“Peter has chronic joint. He seems to have exacerbated the issues during his time without the suit.  His aggressive movements in battle have also increased these issues.”_

“Since when can you talk outside of the suit?”

_“I’ve always been able to, Peter. Mister Stark programmed me that way so I could help him if you were ever unable to communicate during or after a fight.”_

“That’s…”

“Yeah, kid. Incredible, I know.” Tony sighed. “I added to her features when I realized you don’t like talking about your issues. She reports all your vitals to me when you’re on patrol, and everything. I made a watch for you that does the same, if you’re interested, so that I can keep an eye on you off the field.”

“That’s really unnecessary, Mister, I mean Tony!” Peter managed to walk a short distance so he was standing closer to Tony. His leg still hurt like hell, but he wasn’t landing too hard on it, giving him some time to compensate. “I’m fine!”

“And you didn’t think to tell anyone you had unexplained joint issues because that’s totally a normal thing, right?”

“I mean, I know how I got them, so it’s not that bad!”

“Karen,” Tony glanced at the suit. “Care to explain how he got these injuries?”

_“Unfortunately, sir, I do not know.”_

“Kid, what happened?”

Peter shook his head. “I’m fine, Mister Stark. I promise.”

“I don’t buy it. We’re going back to the compound, and medical is giving you a full check. Top to bottom. Whatever this is, you aren’t _‘fine’_.” Tony picked Peter up and started flying the fairly short distance to the compound.

“Tony, please!” Peter shook his head. “It’s not like this is new! It’s been going on a while. Whatever it is, you probably can’t do anything for it anyway!”

“Can’t do anything for it?” Tony shook his head, grabbing Peter’s shoulders a little tighter. Peter fought the urge to wince. “Kid, just because I might not be able to doesn’t mean I’m not going to try. You’re sixteen! You shouldn’t be in chronic pain, especially if you were perfectly fine a few weeks ago!”

“I wasn’t fine a few weeks ago! I wasn’t fine a few months ago! I’ve had this problem since the Vulture dropped that building!”

They were  landing as Tony tripped, the suit stripping off of him, his hands immediately going to guide Peter to medical, knowing full well Peter had tried before to outrun him instead of going in for treatment. “I’m sorry, what?”

“The Vulture?”

“That Toomes guy? He’s been in prison for over a year, kid. Try again.”

“I know that! The night I caught him, though, I found him in this old warehouse. I’m pretty sure it’s where he did work… Anyway, he used his wing things to knock out the supports and it fell on me.”

“You never told me about that.”

“I didn’t think it was important. I got out fine, anyway. Just had to push the concrete up enough to get out.”

“You had how many tons of concrete on you, and you pushed it off? Kid, that’s not only incredible, but highly concerning.” He felt Tony’s arm tighten around his shoulder. “Oh my god, you could have died under all that.”

“I was fine, though! Honestly, the plane fight probably did more damage!”

“Kid, stop talking. We’re getting this checked out. Now. Then, you’re giving me a full list of the injuries from that night that you remember. Capiche?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Peter had to admit, it was nice that someone other than May worried about him. Someone who knew that injuries in their line of work were unavoidable. 

“God, you’re going to give me a heart attack one of these days. You do remember I have heart problems, right?”

Peter shrugged. Tony winced as the joints made a small cracking noise. The check-up itself wasn’t terrible. And if Tony took the suit for a few days and returned it with features specifically designed to help his injuries? Well… It helped a lot, and Tony seemed happy to get reports from Karen that his joints were locking or impeding his movement less often. He even included something in the watch he gave Peter (because there apparently wasn’t any way to get out of that one) that would let him catalog his activities and his relative pain that day.

He didn’t stop cracking his joints, though. And Tony didn’t stop complaining when he cracked his neck.


End file.
